


The Carriage in the Cold

by rosncrntz



Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Old Friends, Sexual Tension, Snow, carriage, unspoken feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 08:05:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12954945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosncrntz/pseuds/rosncrntz
Summary: Victoria is alone for Christmas. That is, until she spots a familiar carriage stuck in the snow, outside Buckingham Palace. The carriage of an old friend. A distant love.A one-shot for the Vicbourne Advent Calendar 2017.





	The Carriage in the Cold

“Papa will be back soon, my darling,” Victoria crooned, sitting beside the window, and watching the snow fall, stroking her eldest daughter’s blonde hair away from her eyes, which were staring worriedly at every carriage to slip, slide, or scrape past the palace gates, wondering if the figure lost inside may be the figure of her father. Little Vicky could not have known that her Papa would not be home tonight, on Christmas Eve, due to the snowfall making the journey perilous. Victoria had received word, but hadn’t the courage to disappoint her babes, and hadn’t lost the naïve hope that he would arrive – like Father Christmas – at the final moment.

But, the sense in her prompted her to believe that Prince Albert would not be home for Christmas. And, yet, she stared listlessly from the window nonetheless, and stroked anxious fingers through her daughter’s hair. And it was a lazy eye which careered the traffic, held back by the snow, and it was a lazy eye that fell upon a familiar object, ever so similar to the rest, and yet as distinct to her trained eye as a flame in the Arctic.

“Is that…?”

“Your Majesty?” Lady Emma asked, turning her head up from her sewing, upon hearing the Queen’s uneasy voice. Emma expected it was the Prince’s carriage, by some miracle, and a small smile danced upon her lips to know that the Queen and her children would not be so alone for Christmas. But, studying her Queen, Emma perceived that the particulars of her face did not give way to the idea that her husband had arrived home, and that there was more peculiarity to her emotions. She seemed at once confused and thrilled, unsure and convinced.

“Emma, please, come here.” Emma rose at her command, and flew to the window. Victoria was pointing through the window insistently, and gave a great tremor of excitement to her voice as she asked, “Is that… is that Lord Melbourne’s carriage?”

Emma swallowed. Her heart leapt. She blinked a couple of times. Her eyes were sore, but they moved like a wild, wandering thing over the tops of the carriages.

“Which one, Ma’am?” she asked.

“The one caught in the snow. There.” Victoria’s pointing became more frantic, and her tone more assured, and her heart ever quickening.

“Oh!” Emma’s eye had caught the carriage in question. “Oh, Ma’am, you certainly have a keen eye.” A carriage almost identical to the others, and yet definite. “I believe you are right.” Victoria’s face broke into a warm and wide smile, and she picked Vicky from her knee as she stood and pressed her two hands into the windows. Her breath made clouds on the glass, and her hands made prints. It was as if, by pressing herself into the window, she could bring herself closer to him. But it was not close enough.

“I must go out and see him!” she cried, turning, quickly, with a flourish of red material and gold lace, and beginning to flee the room. Emma called her back, with a polite warning,

“Ma’am? Do you think that is wise?”

“Of course, it is!” replied Victoria, in a tone as simple as a child, and as stubborn as a monarch. She was never one to see complications in matters of the heart. Feelings, to Victoria, were paramount. And to act upon one’s feelings was the purest actions imaginable. She gave a charming smile, and a bob of the head, and said, “I shan’t be long.” And her hair flew in a halo as she turned around yet again.

“Your Majesty!”

But Victoria had quite escaped the room, and was well on her way to escaping the palace out into the snow.

Meanwhile, in that snow to which Queen Victoria had now become a willing explorer of, there sat a carriage, held back by the wintry element, and inside that carriage sat a rather agitated, and very cold, Lord Melbourne. He had asked how long it would be before they could get moving again, and the answer had come back suitably vague and unhelpful. And so he sat, watching his breath make steam before his face, and bundling his hands into his cloak to keep them from freezing. It was at this time when, quite suddenly and with quite a sudden clunk, the door swung open and Melbourne – slightly dazzled – turned, expecting to find some common man with the job of shovelling the snow.

“Lord Melbourne!”

“Your Majesty?” Melbourne cried. His brain could hardly keep a pace with his eyes, and his voice was more of a high-pitched wail than a sensible question. It was, indeed, the Queen. How could he ever mistake her? Her cheeks were red from the cold and, though she had bundled up in scarves and shawls and furs, her blue eyes and warm smile were as clear as a summer’s day. It hurt to see her. But the pain was bliss.

“Oh, Lord M! Merry Christmas!” she exclaimed, leaning into the carriage to get a better look at her dear and honest friend. Victoria had no notion of Lord M’s mild terror and major confusion, but treat him with the friendliest tokens and regards she could muster – which, for him, were exceedingly warm and exceedingly friendly.

Lord Melbourne must be forgiven a moment or two of stunned and abject silence, before he remembered his manners and managed to stammer a fraught reply,

“And… all the same to… to you… Ma’am.”

“I saw your carriage stuck here in the snow.”

“How… observant of you, Ma’am,” he chuckled, unable to keep himself from that fond amusement in her naivety that made her so _sweet_ to his appreciation.

“Well, it was my primary source of joy for some time, earlier in my life!”

“Only my carriage?”

“Of course not! It was what the carriage represented that thrilled me to see it.”

Melbourne allowed himself a small, proud huff of a laugh, before he returned to matters of business, pressing matters, and pulled his cloak tighter about his shoulders, and asked,

“May I ask what brings the Queen of England to call upon my carriage out here in the cold?”

“Please, you must come in. Albert is not at home!” she said, with all the simplicity that would not go to suggest that she was the Queen of England asking a widower, and her former Prime Minister, to come into Buckingham Palace to accompany her whilst her husband was away. Oh, how chins would wag! Robert Peel would practically swoon to think on it!

“All the more reason I cannot accept your invitation, Ma’am. I am not sure the Prince would be happy to know that I have been a visitor.”

“Oh, nonsense! I cannot bear to be lonely at Christmas!” she protested, holding out an insistent hand for him to take, “And, besides, you will catch your death out here in the cold!”

It was true that Lord Melbourne was looking deathly chilled. Practically grey out here in the dark, and his nose was beyond the merry redness that painted Victoria’s nose, and was as sullen and frozen as the rest of his features. Beyond the innocent wish to spend Christmas with an old friend such as he, she was genuinely concerned that sitting here in the cold would be bad for his health. She had heard some awful stories of the man’s poor health. He must come inside. She was insistent.

It was Christmas, reflected Lord Melbourne, fondly, spying the golden lights like a match burning warmly inside the Palace. And, besides, when was he ever a subject to disobey his Queen? She took his hand and helped him from the carriage, and Victoria amused herself with the vague remembrance of a day – years ago – in which this happened in reverse. She felt a strange and heady glow of power, which did not leave her as they walked together, their heads bowed, towards the Palace. The warm glow was not an illusion, but a rich reality, which he realised once they had crossed the threshold and the warmth of candles and fires swelled in his bosom and soothed his aches and pains. There was tinsel, leaves and small red berries, decorations of all sorts and all sizes. Not ostentatious. Perfect. Seasonal. Beautiful.

He was envious of it, in some selfish way. It was an awful way for him to feel. But he felt it.

“Give me your hands,” Victoria commanded, turning to him after she had rid herself of shawl and bonnet. She was dressed in red, and her skin glowed like gold in the lights, and her hair was braided with red ribbon and beads of that opulent gold shade. Her cheeks were red too. Melbourne wondered what Albert would think, if he saw her wearing this blush. 

He felt he was forgetting himself – as he was always bound to do – in her gaze. He blinked, coughed, and replied,

“Ma’am?”

She snatched her hands away from him before another word was spoken. Snatched, and yet the action was only quick, it was not harsh, but gentle and soft like breeze. Then, she gathered his hands as if they were scraps of old material, weather-worn and old, tough like leather but smoothed down over time, and she bundled them towards her mouth. His hands were clasped between hers, and her lips parted, and she breathed, hot, over his hands. To warm them. The body heat came through her lungs, and embraced his fingers. She did not look at him, but gazed down at the hands she was warming. But he was looking at her, all the while, hypnotised, entranced. There was a little moistness to her breath, which he felt beading in the crook of his thumb. His shoulders shivered, and he was sure he had sighed. Her eyes turned up, flicked up to meet his, and there was something heavy and dark in her eyes, as her lips closed. He was very close to her. She could see the lines of his face. And the silver in his hair. And the green in his eyes. And the gold flecked in them. Oh, that gold. Her tongue darted out, licked her lips. She was blushing, again.

She could kiss him now, she thought. They had never kissed. They had done many things, she thought. But they had never allowed themselves that kiss. Oh. _Oh._

She rubbed his hands, quickly, and let them go, placing them gently as his sides again, and he allowed her to mould him in this way. He would allow her anything. That was the power she wielded, without even knowing it.

There was an easiness to this, to this relationship of theirs, and all the little signs of affection that came along with it. It was not like this with Albert, Victoria thought. It was all fire and passion. It was so calm with Lord M. They needn’t speak. This was enough for them.

Of course, this was enough for them. What more could they wish for?

Oh, she had missed him terribly. It had been far too long.

But Christmas was a time for old friends.

Old lovers.

The time to be reunited. Not to be alone.

“Vicky? Bertie? There is a special visitor come to meet you! Come and see your Uncle William! Come and wish him a Merry Christmas!”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, Laurie, for organising the advent calendar this year! And I hope you all enjoy. A little Christmassy goodness.


End file.
